WILKESBORO, N.C. — The race for North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District seat is down to a few hundred votes, and voters across the district may not know the winner until next week. Once county election boards finished reviewing provisional ballots on Tuesday, Democrat Chuck Hubbard of Wilkesboro held a 325-vote edge over Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx of Banner Elk, the incumbent.
By the close of the day on Nov. 10, unofficial returns showed Hubbard with 139,672 votes to 139,347 for Foxx. Results on the State Board of Elections site carried the same margin Wednesday morning with all 230 precincts in, though Rockingham County had not yet posted its provisional totals there.
The night was a seesaw. Hubbard’s Election Day margin had been 99 votes. The lead flipped more than once as county boards added the provisional ballots they approved Tuesday, and at one point Foxx was up by 38. Hubbard picked up his largest net gains in Guilford County, where only part of the county lies in the district, and in Watauga County. Those are the only two of the district’s 10 counties he carried.
Provisional ballots are set aside when a voter’s eligibility is in question or the ballot was not completed as required. Common reasons include a name missing from the rolls at the polling place, voting in the wrong precinct on Election Day or not showing photo ID. Each county board decides which ones count.
Nothing is final yet. Certification comes Friday, Nov. 13, at each county board’s official canvass. State law then gives a candidate who finishes within 1 percent until noon Tuesday, Nov. 17, to file a written recount request with the state elections board. A machine recount of every ballot comes first. If the result holds, the next step is hand-counting 3 percent of precincts chosen at random, and a districtwide hand count follows only if that sample turns up errors big enough to flip the race.
Both campaigns have signaled a long fight. Foxx said last week that counting was not finished under state law and later announced that congressional election observers would be in the district at her request, while Hubbard voiced confidence in the elections board and said he expects to have to fight for the seat.
Section: More Raleigh NC politics news
Filed under: Raleigh NC Politics News
